Houston: A Tiger by the tail

Houston, we have been sprung. The project is over, the rental car has been turned in, the keys to the apartment are on the table, and we have closed the door.

Hunter Thompson once wrote, “Houston is a cruel, crazy town on a filthy river in East Texas with no zoning laws and a culture of sex, money and violence. It’s a shabby, sprawling metropolis ruled by brazen women, crooked cops and super-rich pansexual cowboys who live by the code of the West—which can mean just about anything you need it to mean, in a pinch.” Now there’s some straight talk.

When Houston residents were asked to describe their city in a few words, these are the phrases most frequently used: sprawl and traffic, road rage, hot and humid, ugly juggernaut, constant construction, no defining architecture, little natural beauty, global community, guns and rednecks; then there are the hurricanes, tornados, flooding, and subsequent mosquitos. Houston is complicated—as one resident said, “If you are considering a move to Houston, live in Dallas first and work up to Houston.”

The almost constant whirl of ambulances, medivac helicopters, and fire trucks

Mean-spirited drivers and insane traffic

Grocery carts scattered in every parking lot

89° days with 98% humidity

The bored grumpiness of most store clerks

Getting up at 4:00 am

The dysfunctional TV remote

The dysfunctional fire alarm system

Obscure, difficult-to-understand highway signage

Street names that change without warning from one block to the next

Service trucks that stop and park in the right lane on surface streets

The lack of trees in the rural landscape

Houston would make a great four-day Spring trip. Stay in the Museum District at the Hotel Zaza, have an espresso at Double Trouble in Midtown, walk to the Menil Collection, the Museum of Fine Arts, and the Jung Center, buy a grilled cheese sandwich from the food truck in front of the Cullen Sculpture Garden, take the Metro downtown for shwarma at the Phoenicia (in the daytime!), Uber to the Galleria, shop on Rice Boulevard, grab a fried avocado taco at Torchy’s, meet up at 11:00 p.m. with the Oh My Gogi food truck at 5555 Morningside, and then—get the hell out of town.

Sarcophagus of a Youth, 4th Century B.C. Houston Museum of Fine Arts

Gymnast II, William Tucker, Cullen Sculpture Garden

A Wooded Landscape in Three Panels, Louis Tiffany, 1905, Museum of Fine Arts